OUR VIEW: Standards help ready workforce for future

Although Gov. Bill Haslam is not yet ready to declare his legacy in office, apparently he wants that legacy to be that he helped bring the state's workforce into the 21st century.

Haslam's Drive to 55 and Tennessee Promise initiatives and support for Common Core standards are components of establishing that legacy, even with the battle he faces over Common Core.

The battle over Common Core seems closely akin to the current Republican Party rift between business-minded party members and those who espouse the viewpoints of the tea party.

Haslam appears aware that the workforce of the 21st century cannot be the workforce of the 19th or 20th centuries. Workers need to have the necessary preparation to do jobs that will require mental dexterity rather than the physical stamina of past centuries.

Such mental dexterity requires more than being able to receive information and to repeat that information back to their instructors in some text format. Workers in an information-based economy need to be able to acquire information, process the information and apply that processed information.

Workers also need the ability to work in teams and to deal with challenges of a global rather than a local or regional economy.

Haslam's initiatives are trying to encourage post-secondary education. Tennessee Promise would allow high school graduates to receive two more years of education free.

Common Core standards will help to ensure that these high school graduates will succeed in their post-secondary studies and will become productive workers in the global economy.

Those who oppose Common Core are bringing into the fray any number of questions about the nation's political system, the nation's economic system, transition in the economy and the quality and control of education.

While those questions deserve full debate, they are in most cases peripheral to the need to transform workforce preparation.

Calls for local or state educational standards are ignoring the facts that today's workers are competing against workers of other nations in a global economy and that they must meet the standards of companies whose owners may not live in this community, state or nation.

Politicians who are preying on social, political and economic fears of constituents are doing a disservice to them.

Voters should thank those politicians who are showing leadership during a difficult economic transition and reward them with their votes.

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OUR VIEW: Standards help ready workforce for future

Although Gov. Bill Haslam is not yet ready to declare his legacy in office, apparently he wants that legacy to be that he helped bring the state's workforce into the 21st century.